It was obvious to Champlain that, to ensure victory, the fort must be demolished. Huge trees, severed at the base, falling upon it, did not break it down. At length, directed by Champlain, the savages approached under their shields, tore away the supporting posts, and thus made a breach, into which rushed the infuriated besiegers, and in hot haste finished their deadly work. Fifteen of the Iroquois were taken prisoners; a few plunged into the river and were drowned; the rest perished by musket-shots, arrow-wounds, the tomahawk, and the war-club. Of the allied savages three were killed and fifty wounded. Champlain himself did not escape altogether unharmed. An arrow, armed with a sharp point of stone, pierced his ear and neck, which he drew out with his own hand. One of his companions received a similar wound in the arm. The victors scalped the dead as usual, ornamenting the prows of their canoes with the bleeding heads of their enemies, while they severed one of the bodies into quarters, to eat, as they alleged, in revenge. The canoes of the savages and a French shallop having come to the scene of this battle, all soon embarked and returned to the Island of St. Ignace. Here the allies, joined by eighty Huron warriors who had arrived too late to participate in the conflict, remained three days, celebrating their victory by dancing, singing, and the administration of the usual punishment upon their prisoners of war. This consisted in a variety of exquisite tortures, similar to those inflicted the year before, after the victory on Lake Champlain, horrible and sickening in all their features, and which need not be spread upon these pages. From these tortures Champlain would gladly have snatched the poor wretches, had it been in his power, but in this matter the savages would brook no interference. There was a solitary exception, however, in a fortunate young Iroquois who fell to him in the division of prisoners. He was treated with great kindness, but it did not overcome his excessive fear and distrust, and he soon sought an opportunity and escaped to his home. [71] When the celebration of the victory had been completed, the Indians departed to their distant abodes. Champlain, however, before their departure, very wisely entered into an agreement that they should receive for the winter a young Frenchman who was anxious to learn their language, and, in return, he was himself to take a young Huron, at their special request, to pass the winter in France. This judicious arrangement, in which Champlain was deeply interested and which he found some difficulty in accomplishing, promised an important future advantage in extending the knowledge of both parties, and in strengthening on the foundation of personal experience their mutual confidence and friendship.